Kipps by H. G. Wells (bts books to read TXT) 📕

fungoid with External Features, and honeycombed with Internal ones; it was, he said, ‘practically a mansion,’ and altogether a very noble fruit of the creative mind of man. It was, he admitted, perhaps almost too good for Hythe; his art had run away with him and produced a modern mansion in the ‘best Folkestone style’; it had a central hall with a staircase, a Moorish gallery, and a Tudor stained-glass window, crenelated battlements to the leading over the portico, an octagonal bulge with octagonal bay windows, surmounted by an Oriental dome of metal, lines of yellow bricks to break up the red, and many other richnesses and attractions. It was the sort of house, ornate and in its dignified way voluptuous, that a city magnate might build, but it seemed excessive to the Kippses. The first plan had seven bedrooms, the second eight, the third eleven; they had, the architect explained, ‘worked in’ as if they were pebbles in a mountaineer’s boot.

They’re big ‘ouses,’ said Ann, directly the elevations were unrolled.

Kipps listened to the architect, with round eyes and an exuberant caution in his manner, anxious not to commit himself further than he had done to the enterprise, and the architect pointed out the Features and other objects of interest with the scalpel belonging to a pocket manicure set that he carried. Ann watched Kipps’ face, and communicated with him furtively over the architect’s head. ‘Not so big,’ said Ann’s lips.

‘It’s a bit big for what I meant,’ said Kipps, with a reassuring eye on Ann.

‘You won’t think it big when you see it up,’ said the architect; ‘you take my word for that.’

‘We don’t want no more than six bedrooms,’ said Kipps.

‘Make this one a box-room, then,’ said the architect.

A feeling of impotence silenced Kipps for a time.

‘Now which,’ said the architect, spreading them out, ‘is it to be?’

He flattened down the plans of the most ornate mansion to show it to better effect.

Kipps wanted to know how much each would cost ‘at the outside,’ which led to much alarmed signalling from Ann. But the architect could estimate only in the most general way.

They were not really committed to anything when the architect went away; Kipps had promised to think it over—that was all.

‘We can’t ‘ave that ‘ouse,’ said Ann.

‘They’re miles too big—all of them,’ agreed Kipps.

‘You’d want—Four servants wouldn’t be ‘ardly enough,’ said Ann.

Kipps went to the hearthrug and spread himself. His tone was almost off-hand. ‘Nex’ time ‘e comes,’ said Kipps, ‘I’ll s’plain to him. It isn’t at all the sort of thing we want. It’s—it’s a misunderstanding. You got no occasion to be anxious ‘bout it, Ann.’

‘I don’t see much good reely in building an ‘ouse at all,’ said Ann.

‘Oo, we got to build a ‘ouse now we begun,’ said Kipps. ‘But now supposin’ we ‘ad—’

He spread out the most modest of the three plans and scratched his cheek.

6

It was unfortunate that old Kipps came over the next day.

Old Kipps always produced peculiar states of mind in his nephew—a rash assertiveness, a disposition towards display unlike his usual self. There had been great difficulty in reconciling both these old people to the Pornick m��salliance, and at times the controversy echoed in old Kipps’ expressed thoughts. This, perhaps, it was, and no ignoble vanity, that set the note of florid successfulness going in Kipps’ conversation whenever his uncle appeared. Mrs. Kipps was, as a matter of fact, not reconciled at all; she had declined all invitations to come over on the bus, and was a taciturn hostess on the one occasion when the young people called at the toyshop en route for Mrs. Pornick. She displayed a tendency to sniff that was clearly due to pride rather than catarrh, and, except for telling Ann she hoped she would not feel too ‘stuck up’ about her marriage, confined her conversation to her nephew or the infinite. The call was a brief one, and made up chiefly of pauses, no refreshment was offered or asked for, and Ann departed with a singularly high colour. For some reason she would not call at the toyshop a second time when they found themselves again in New Romney.

But old Kipps, having adventured over and tried the table of the new m��nage and found it to his taste, showed many signs of softening towards Ann. He came again, and then again. He would come over by the bus, and, except when his mouth was absolutely full, he would give his nephew one solid and continuous mass of advice of the most subtle and disturbing description until it was time to toddle back to the High Street for the afternoon bus. He would walk with him to the sea front, and commence pourparlers with boatmen for the purchase of one of their boats—‘You ought to keep a boat of your own,’ he said—though Kipps was a singularly poor sailor—or he would pursue a plan that was forming in his mind in which he should own and manage what he called ‘weekly’ property in the less conspicuous streets of Hythe. The cream of that was to be a weekly collection of rents in person, the nearest approach to feudal splendour left in this democratised country. He gave no hint of the source of the capital he designed for this investment, and at times it would appear he intended it as an occupation for his nephew rather than himself.

But there remained something in his manner towards Ann— in the glances of scrutiny he gave her unawares, that kept Kipps alertly expansive whenever he was about; and in all sorts of ways. It was on account of old Kipps, for example, that our Kipps plunged one day—a golden plunge—and brought home a box of cummerbundy ninepenny cigars, and substituted blue label old Methuselah Four Stars for the common and generally satisfactory white brand.

‘Some of this is whisky, my boy,’ said old Kipps, when he tasted it, smacking critical lips…

‘Saw a lot of young officery fellers coming along,’ said old Kipps. ‘You ought to join the volunteers, my boy, and get to know a few.’

‘I dessay I shall,’ said Kipps. ‘Later.’

‘They’d make you an officer, you know, ‘n no time. They want officers,’ said old Kipps. ‘It isn’t every one can afford it. They’d be regular glad to ‘ave you… Ain’t bort a dog yet?’

‘Not yet, Uncle. ‘Ave a segar?’

‘Nor a moty car?’

‘Not yet, Uncle.’

‘There’s no ‘urry about that. End don’t get one of these ‘ere trashy cheap ones when you do get it, my boy. Get one as’ll last a lifetime… I’m surprised you don’t ‘ire a bit more.’

‘Ann don’t seem to fency a moty car,’ said Kipps.

‘Ah,’ said old Kipps, ‘I expect not,’ and glanced a comment at the door. ‘She ain’t used to going out,’ he said. ‘More at ‘ome indoors.’

‘Fact is,’ said Kipps hastily, ‘we’re thinking of building a ‘ouse.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, my boy,’ began old Kipps; but his nephew was routing in the chiffonier drawer amidst the plans. He got them in time to check some further comment on Ann. ‘Um,’ said the old gentleman, a little impressed by the extraordinary odour and the unusual transparency of the tracing-paper Kipps put into his hands. ‘Thinking of building a ‘ouse, are you?’

Kipps began with the most modest of the three projects.

Old Kipps read slowly through his silver-rimmed spectacles, ‘Plan a ‘ouse for Arthur Kipps, Esquire. Um.’

He didn’t warm to the project all at once, and Ann drifted into the room to find him still scrutinising the architect’s proposals a little doubtfully.

‘We couldn’t find a decent ‘ouse anywhere,’ said Kipps, leaning against the table and assuming an off-hand note.

‘I didn’t see why we shouldn’t run up one for ourselves.’ Old Kipps could not help liking the tone of that.

‘We thought we might see—’ said Ann.

‘It’s a spekerlation, of course,’ said old Kipps, and held the plan at a distance of two feet or more from his glasses and frowned. This isn’t exactly the ‘ouse I should expect you to ‘ave thought of though,’ he said, ‘Practically, it’s a villa. It’s the sort of ‘ouse a bank clerk might ‘ave. T’isn’t what I should call a gentleman’s ‘ouse, Artie.’

‘It’s plain, of course,’ said Kipps, standing beside his uncle and looking down at this plan, which certainly did seem a little less magnificent now than it had at the first encounter.

‘You mustn’t ‘ave it too plain,’ said old Kipps.

‘If it’s comfortable—’ Ann hazarded.

Old Kipps glanced at her over his spectacles. ‘You ain’t comfortable, my gel, in this world, not if you don’t live up to your position’—so putting compactly into contemporary English that fine old phrase noblesse oblige.

‘A ‘ouse of this sort is what a retired tradesman might ‘ave, or some little whipper-snapper of a s’licitor. But you—’

‘Course that isn’t the on’y plan,’ said Kipps, and tried the middle one.

But it was the third one won over old Kipps. ‘Now, that’s a ‘ouse, my boy,’ he said at the sight of it.

Ann came and stood just behind her husband’s shoulder, while old Kipps expanded upon the desirability of the larger scheme. ‘You ought to ‘ave a billiard-room,’ he said; ‘I don’t see that, but all the rest’s about right! A lot of these ‘ere officers ‘ere ‘ud be glad of a game of billiards…

‘What’s all these pots? said old Kipps.

‘S’rubbery,’ said Kipps. ‘Flow’ing s’rubs.’

‘There’s eleven bedrooms in that ‘ouse,’ said Ann. ‘It’s a bit of a lot, ain’t it, Uncle?’

‘You’ll want ‘em, my girl. As you get on you’ll be ‘aving visitors. Friends of your ‘usband’s, p’r’aps, from the School of Musketry—what you want ‘im to get on with. You can’t never tell.’

‘If we ‘ave a great s’rubbery,’ Ann ventured, ‘we shall ‘ave to keep a gardener.’

‘If you don’t ‘ave a s’rubbery,’ said old Kipps, with a note of patient reasoning, ”ow are you to prevent every jackanapes that goes by starin’ into your drorin’-room winder—p’r’aps when you get some one a bit special to entertain?’

‘We ain’t used to a s’rubbery,’ said Ann, mulishly; ‘we get on very well ‘ere.’

‘It isn’t what you’re used to,’ said old Kipps, ‘it’s what you ought to ‘ave now.’ And with that Ann dropped out of the discussion.

‘Study and lib’ry,’ old Kipps read. That’s right. I see a Tantalus the other day over Brookland, the very thing for a gentleman’s study. I’ll try and get over and bid for it…’

By bus time old Kipps was quite enthusiastic about the housebuilding, and it seemed to be definitely settled that the largest plan was the one decided upon.

But Ann had said nothing further in the matter.

7

When Kipps returned from seeing his uncle into the bus— there always seemed a certain doubt whether that portly figure would go into the little red ‘Tip-top’ box—he found Ann still standing by the table, looking with an expression of comprehensive disapproval at the three plans.

‘There don’t seem much the matter with Uncle,’ said Kipps, assuming the hearthrug, ‘spite of ‘is ‘eartburn. ‘E ‘opped up them steps like a bird.’

Ann remained staring at the plans.

‘You don’t like them plans?’ hazarded Kipps.

‘No; I don’t, Artie.’

‘We got to build somethin’ now.’

‘But—It’s a gentleman’s ‘ouse, Artie!’

‘It’s—it’s a decent size, o’ course.’

Kipps took a flirting look at the drawing and went to the window.

‘Look at the cleanin’. Free servants’ll be lost in that ‘ouse, Artie.’

‘We must ‘ave servants,’ said Kipps.

Ann looked despondently at her future residence.

‘We got to keep up our position any’ow,’ said Kipps, turning towards her. ‘It stands to reason, Ann, we got a position. Very well! I can’t ‘ave you scrubbin’ floors. You